


Flirting with Danger

by toli-a (togina)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Minor pining, Modern Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-06-03 13:15:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6612016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/togina/pseuds/toli-a
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Hyams stares," Bucky says, because one of them has to pay attention to the team. Steve looks back to see Hyams blushing like a new recruit, and debates telling Bucky that Hyams is secretly a spy. Or an alien. But his therapists probably wouldn't approve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flirting with Danger

**Author's Note:**

> As always, thanks to cabloom and all the fine prompting people of tumblr.

Steve didn’t notice it until the third mission. Honestly, Steve didn’t notice it at  _ all,  _ too busy trying to run a team and dismantle Hydra and keep one eye on Bucky at all times. He liked the agents they worked with: hand picked by Clint and Natasha from the smoking ruins of SHIELD, women and men he could trust at his back. He didn’t trust anyone at Bucky’s back but himself. He didn’t trust himself unless he had Bucky in his sight.

“Hyams stares,” Bucky told Steve on the flight home, curled easily into the cramped space around the pilot’s seat, waiting for Steve to stop talking to radio control.

“He what?” Steve – subtle as a brick, Bucky had said once, back in the days where his biggest concern was getting his lame friend a date – spun around to check out their team in the rear of the plane. Sure enough, Zach was looking forward, his dark eyes focused on Steve’s best friend.

“Threat?” Bucky wondered, calmly leaning into Steve’s shins and cleaning both their knives, metal fingers flashing under the cockpit’s electronic lights. He always checked with Steve, to make sure someone was actually a threat to them and not to Hydra. He trusted Steve with his vengeance, and with his peace of mind. He trusted Steve, and Steve would have fought a thousand wars to bring Bucky home, to set him free.

It was a valid question. Nat had recommended Carlyle, for the first mission, had worked with her and liked her as much as Nat liked anyone. No one had known that the Winter Soldier had killed Carlyle’s parents, and Bucky had nearly ended up dead at her hands because he waited for Steve to shout, “Damnit, yes, Bucky,  _ threat _ !” before he fought back.

But Zach didn’t look suspicious, or angry. When he realized that Captain America had caught him staring, he blushed and glanced away. Ducked his head and tried to discreetly gaze at Bucky from the corner of his eye, just like the dames in – just like the dames.

“Oh!” Steve’s surprised exhale drew Bucky’s attention, and his friend straightened up, waiting. Steve didn’t realize that he’d grabbed onto Bucky’s shoulder until he glanced down and saw his fingers silhouetted against the black fabric, white around the nails where he was gripping too hard.

Bucky held up Steve’s favorite combat knife and tilted his head toward Hyams, resting his free hand reassuringly over the one digging into his shoulder.

The therapists didn’t like it, that Bucky allowed Steve to call the shots that the Soldier made. They went on about agency and autonomy and the dangers of codependency, but Bucky had been letting Steve pick their fights since he was seven years old and rescuing a scrawny six-year-old from the bullies harassing Margie Cohen outside school. And they never said a word to Steve, who depended on Bucky to keep him alive. Bucky trusted Steve to recognize their enemies, and Steve trusted Bucky to be there so that Steve could keep breathing.

“No,” Steve croaked, shaking his head when Bucky started to stand, ready to label Zach as the enemy. “Not a threat. He’s… He’s interested.”

Bucky wrinkled his nose, pushing out his lips in the way he always had when he disapproved of something, or thought Steve was talking nonsense. Steve chuckled, unable to resist that expression, even when it wasn’t followed by, “You idiot! What, do you think you’re Lucky Luciano?” Bucky spoke less, these days, but Sam said that if it didn’t seem like trauma, maybe it wasn’t, and Steve didn’t mind just listening to Bucky breathe.

“Interested.” Steve cleared his throat, shrugged. “Um, I think he’d like to see you. Erm.” He searched for the twenty-first century words. “Date you? Go dancing? Kiss? Take you away from m– uh, out. Someplace. Nice.”

Bucky frowned. And Steve didn’t want to examine the ache in his chest too closely, the twist in his stomach that he had always blamed on the ulcers before Erskine came. But it was a new ache, for the confusion on Bucky’s face, for the fresh reminder that his closest friend had spent decades in the cold, had been treated worse than an animal until he couldn’t understand something as simple as a sweetheart.

Maybe Zach would be good for Bucky, no matter that the hollow sensation of loss in Steve’s chest disagreed. He could show the most important person in Steve’s world what it meant to be human again. What it meant to be in love.

If Bucky even liked men. Steve had never asked. Steve had never wanted to know for sure, that Bucky liked men but not – Well. And they’d both changed, after all.

“No,” Bucky said, shaking his head and rearranging his legs so that they tangled around Steve’s, pocketing the folding knife.

“No …what?” Steve replied, frowning, belatedly remembering that he was also piloting their plane. “No kissing?” He loosened his grip on Bucky’s shoulder, couldn’t help but turn his hand over and interlace their fingers.  _ He’s right here _ , Steve reminded himself, convincing his traitorous lungs to function. He could be a good friend to Bucky. Their therapists would be thrilled. “It might be nice, Buck. You used to like kissing, and lord knows the girls always liked you.”

Bucky shook his head again, a quick, sharp negation that ruffled his short hair.

“No kissing?” Steve repeated. “Or no kissing men?” He bowled his next words into the back of his question, not waiting for the answer. “We could find you a nice dame, probably. Nat’s good at that. Well, she thinks she is, but the last woman she -”

Bucky tugged on Steve’s fingers, leaned backward so that he could meet Steve’s eyes. “No kissing -” He paused, measuring out his words carefully, like Steve’s Ma sifting flour into a bowl. “- Hyams. Or dames.”

“Oh.”  _ Respect Barnes’s boundaries _ , Sam was always saying. Steve could do that. He could. “Okay. Well -”

“Just you,” Bucky finished, talking over Steve. And he smirked at Steve’s open mouth, brought Steve’s hand to his lips and proved he hadn’t forgotten human affection after all, pressing a soft kiss to Steve’s knuckles. “Just you.”

Steve let Hyams land the jet. He figured it was the least he could do – and it got him out of the pilot’s seat and into Bucky’s arms.


End file.
